Kwame Alexander on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'

 

[I watched The Late Show, the CBS late-night talk show with Stephen Colbert as host, on Monday night, 13 January 2025.  One of Colbert’s guests was poet and writer of children’s fiction Kwame Alexander, of whom I didn’t think I’d heard.  (It turns out he’d been on The Late Show before about a year ago, but I either forgot that appearance or missed that episode.)

[Alexander’s Encyclopedia Britannica entry says:

Kwame Alexander (born August 21, 1968, New York, New York) is an American poet, author of young adult and children’s fiction, and advocate for introducing literary works and the art of writing to schoolchildren. He gained national prominence after winning the Newbery Medal in 2015 for his novel The Crossover (2014), much of which he wrote in free verse.

Alexander was born to literary parents: his father was a writer and publisher and his mother an English teacher. When he was 12 years old, his family moved to Virginia. After first studying biochemistry at Virginia Tech, Alexander switched to English and developed an interest in poetry under professor and poet Nikki Giovanni. He began his career as an editor, producing The Flow: New Black Poets in Motion (1994). Among his other literary pursuits, he founded the Alexander Publishing Group and its imprint, BlackWords Press (1995–2005). In 2019 Alexander teamed with publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to launch the Versify imprint, under which he helped choose children’s books to publish.

Alexander’s first poetry collection for adults, Just Us: Poems and Counterpoems, 1986–1995, was published in 1995. His other collections include Kupenda: Love Poems (2000), Dancing Naked on the Floor (2005), and And Then You Know: New and Selected Poems (2009). The book Crush: Love Poems (2007) was written for young adults. In Out of Wonder (2017), Alexander and poets Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth created poems in celebration of 20 of their favourite poets. Ekua Holmes, who illustrated Out of Wonder, won the 2018 Coretta Scott King Book Award for her work. In 2020 Alexander published Light for the World to See: A Thousand Words on Race and Hope, a collection of poems on historic events, including the killing of George Floyd, the protests of football player Colin Kaepernick, and the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president.

Among his other writing accomplishments, Alexander wrote stories for children. Indigo Blume and the Garden City (2010) tells about a little girl and her rooftop garden. Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band (2011) introduces jazz to young children through animals. Surf’s Up (2016) follows the adventures of two frogs, one who likes to read and the other who likes to surf. In Animal Ark: Celebrating Our Wild World in Poetry and Pictures (2017), Alexander contributed verse to go along with photographs of animals. Published in 2019, The Undefeated is an homage to Black life in the United States. The book was named a Newbery Honor Book in 2020. Kadir Nelson, who illustrated The Undefeated, won the Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award in 2020 for his artwork.

Alexander also wrote books for an older audience. He Said, She Said (2013), for teens, explores the relationship between two seniors in high school: a football player and a social activist. Alexander’s award-winning book The Crossover follows a year in the lives of twin African American 12-year-old boys and their love of basketball. Rebound (2018) is a prequel to The Crossover, focusing on the twins’ father. In Booked (2016), Alexander again used free verse—this time, to explore a boy’s relationship with his family and friends as he navigates a soccer injury, bullying, and his reluctance to read. Working with novelist James Patterson, Alexander combined prose and poetry in Becoming Muhammad Ali (2020), a fictionalized retelling of the boxer’s youth. Solo (2017) and Swing (2018), both written with Mary Rand Hess, deal with weightier topics, such as drug addiction and social divisions, respectively. In 2022 Alexander published The Door of No Return, the first novel in a trilogy about a boy living in what is now Ghana who becomes entrapped in the transatlantic slave trade.

Alexander also wrote about the technical aspects of being an author. He published Do the Write Thing: Seven Steps to Publishing Success (2002) with Nina Foxx. In The Write Thing (2018), he discussed how writing workshops can benefit school-age children.

Besides writing, Alexander has been active in community-based initiatives. In 2006 he founded Book-in-a-Day, a nonprofit educational literacy service. The organization helps to promote reading and writing skills by encouraging children to write poetry and publish their work. In 2012 Alexander cofounded the Literacy Empowerment Action Project (LEAP), which is dedicated to increasing educational opportunities in Ghana. He is also a frequent contributor to Morning Edition, the daily news program on National Public Radio.

[In any case, I was very impressed with him as a talk show guest.  He had a charming and engaging personality and was a great raconteur, so I thought, if I could find a transcript of his interview, I'd run it on Rick On Theater.  I did find one, but it wasn’t like the News Hour transcripts I’m used to—these are full of errors and have no speaker identifications (except "Stephen" for the host, and a symbol for the guest, but no name, and no formatting).  So there was a lot of editing to do, and then I needed to listen to the video to fix all the mistranscriptions and gobbledygook.  (The transcription is clearly machine-generated and no human checked it.)

[So, I re-edited the transcript, which aside from the errors, had little punctuation, so I pretty much repunctuated it as well.  So what you’re about to read is about half computer-created and half mine.]

STEPHEN COLBERT: Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen!

My friends, my next guest is a New York Times best-selling author of 42 books, who has won the Newbery Medal [2015; for “the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children” for The Crossover, his children’s novel in verse] and an Emmy Award [The Crossover (2023) for Outstanding Young Teen Series; on Disney+].  His new book is How Sweet the Sound [Little, Brown and Company, 2025].  Please welcome back to The Late Show, Kwame Alexander!

[CHEERS, APPLAUSE, AND MUSIC.] 

We love poets on The Late Show.  We love having the artists on here who paint the pictures with the words and the rhythm and inflection and unexpected twists and turns and combinations, and I’m just curious: you as a poet—what is it that first drew you to poetry?  When did you discover poetry as a human being?

KWAME ALEXANDER: I was three years old.

COLBERT: You remember!

ALEXANDER: I remember.  I was living on the Upper West Side.  My parents were in graduate school at Columbia University.  My mother read to me every day—Lucille Clifton [African-American poet, writer, and educator; 1936-2010], Nikki Giovanni [African-American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator; 1943-2024], and Langston Hughes [African-American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist; 1901-67].

But my favorite book was a book that went like this: “Fox / Socks / Knox / Box / Fox in socks / Socks in box” [Dr. Seuss, Fox in Socks (Random House, 1965)].  So, ummm . . . at my preschool, there was this kid who didn't like me, and one particular day, I built a castle out of wooden blocks to show my mother so she’d be proud of me when she came to pick me up, but this kid knocked ’em over.  So I went up to him and I used the only weapons I had.  Those were my blocks that you flipped.  Lest you want some quick payback, better fix my quick blocks stack.  [LAUGHTER.]  And he started crying.  [LAUGHTER.]  And so, when my mother came to school, the teacher was like, “Mrs. Alexander, we have a problem.  Your son Kwame is arrogant.  He intimidates all the kids with his words,” and my mother said, “Thank you.”

[NOTE: Alexander recited the Dr. Seuss lines from memory, but he misquoted it slightly.  He did the same with the Nikki Giovanni poem below.  In both cases, I’m transcribing verbatim what the poet said on camera, then I’ll post the correct verses as published in an afterword below.    ~RICK]

[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE.]

COLBERT: Mission accomplished!  

You were last here [on 1 February 2024] for your collection of poetry This Is the Honey [Little, Brown and Company, 2020].  You now have How Sweet the Sound: A Soundtrack for America.  This is your 42nd book—who’s counting—and many of your books are for kids.  Do you change anything in the way you write, if the book is for children as opposed to a general public?

ALEXANDER: Not really.  I try to write books that I would have wanted to have read when I was four or ten or 12 and I would love now.  So I’m writing about topics that I think families can read and enjoy together, but certainly, I have a soft spot in my heart for young people because I believe that the mind of an adult begins in the imagination of a child, and what better way to enhance . . . elevate that imagination than through the words on a page.

[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE.]

COLBERT: The book is a love letter, How Sweet the Sound . . . [APPLAUSE] . . . the book is a love letter to music.  What makes up the soundtrack to America to you?

ALEXANDER: Well, I believe it’s a symphony of refuge, it’s a score of redemption, it’s a . . . .  Last night I was at the Blue Note [Jazz Club, Greenwich Village] and I saw Sweet Honey in the Rock [all-female, African-American a cappella ensemble].  

COLBERT: Oh.  [SINGS:] “We all . . . everyone of us . . .” [We All . . . Every One of Us, 1983].

ALEXANDER: They sang that. 

COLBERT: They did?

ALEXANDER: Yeah.  And I don't care where you are from, what you are feeling . . . when you hear music, music can heal, it can give you hope.  It can open up a world of possibility, which is what the same thing I think children's books do.

COLBERT: Poetry and lyrics are . . . well, what is the difference to you?  Are they the same thing?

ALEXANDER: No.  I think maybe they are cousins.  Maybe they are kissing cousins. [LAUGHTER – ALEXANDER LAUGHS – MORE LAUGHTER.]  Imagine this, Stephen: lyrics, when they are done right, they need a beautiful guitarist, they need a sax player.  They need musicians to help elevate those words that are on the page.

COLBERT: They’re in relationship to the music that they’re dancing with. 

ALEXANDER: Poetry is the whole band.  Like, you have to do it all in those words on the page.  And I think that makes it special. 

COLBERT: Have you written lyrics?

ALEXABDER: Umm . . . not successfully.

COLBERT: You’ve given it a shot.

ALEXANDER: I’ve given it a shot, and that's when I found out they’re not the same.

COLBERT: One of those first poets that was read to you, the acclaimed poet Nikki Giovanni, passed away a few weeks ago [d. 9 December 2024; one of the world’s best-known African-American poets], and I know that she was your mentor.  How did the two of you become close?  That’s an extraordinary experience, to become close to someone who influenced you when you were 3.

ALEXANDER: Well, I met her in 1987.  This was the beginning of our relationship.  I was a sophomore at a place called Virginia Tech [Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg; Giovanni was University Distinguished Professor Emerita at VPI since December 2022].  And she was a visiting professor.  Me, deeming myself a pretty fantastic poet, took her advanced poetry class. 

I think she gave me a C-minus. [LAUGHTER] And so, I was livid and I went to her office and I—I had just discovered jazz music—and so I went and sat down in her office during office hours and I said, I don’t understand why I got a C-minus.  I’m a poet.  I listen to Nancy Wilson [jazz singer; 1937-2018] and I’m channeling my inner jazz and I know what I’m doing.  And she said, “Kwame, I can teach you how to write poetry, but I cannot teach you how to be interesting.”

[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE.]

COLBERT: Oh-ho!  I felt that.

ALEXANDER: That was the beginning of a 37-year relationship.

COLBERT: Are there any words of hers that you would like to leave us with here tonight?

ALEXANDER: Yeah.  Can the band join me on this?

COLBERT: Yeah!  Can you guys . . . [MUSIC.]

ALEXANDER: I know you just wrote a cookbook with your wife [Stephen Colbert and Evie McGee Colbert, Does This Taste Funny? (Celadon Books, 2024)], so you might find this apropos.

COLBERT: Okay.

ALEXANDER: It’s called “Still Life with Apron” [in Chasing Utopia: A Hybrid (William Morrow, 2013)] by Nikki Giovanni. 

I would like to see you
Cooking
I would like for you to cook
For me
I would like to see you decide
Upon the menu
Go to the market
And pick the fruit
The vegetables
The fish
I would like to see you smell the fish I would like for you to Test the
     flesh for freshness and firmness
I would like to watch you
In the bakery by the dinner rolls
Deciding: Rolls or Crusty Bread
I would like to watch you run back
To get the Goat Butter
 
I would like to be sitting in a corner
And you
Intent upon your meal
Not noticing me
When you go to the wine store
I would like to watch you wrestle with red or white wine
Of course, because it is fish, but red
Is so Seductive and who ever fell in love
Over a glass of white wine?  [LAUGHTER]
 
I—uncharacteristically on time—
Would like to greet you
I would like for you to greet me
In a butcher’s apron
I would like for you to greet me only
In an apron
I would like to watch the movement inside the
     apron
As I undress for you
I would like to watch you walk
No
Stroll to the closet
Where you bring out your buffalo plaid
     dressing gown
Your pilly much-washed dressing gown that
     smells like you
After you shower After you brush your teeth
After you comb your hair
I would like to embrace your odor
I would like to embrace
Your essence as we sit down to eat
I would like you to cook for me
Yes
I would like that
Very much

[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE.]

COLBERT: Thank you for that.  How Sweet the Sound is available tomorrow!

Kwame Alexander, everybody!  We will be right back!

[The verse from Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Socks goes like this (I’ll try to duplicate its original typography as well):

Fox
Socks
Box
Knox
Knox in box.
Fox in socks.
Knox on fox in socks on box.

 [Nikki Giovanni’s 2013 poem “Still Life with Apron” (as published in Chasing Utopia; again, I’ll attempt to replicate the poets format and typography):

I would like to see you
Cooking
I would like for you to cook
For me
I would like to see you decide
Upon a menu
Go to the market
And pick the fruit
The vegetables
The fish
I would like to see you smell the fish Test the
     flesh for freshness and firmness
I would like to watch you
In the bakery
In the bakery by the dinner rolls
Deciding: Rolls or Crusty Bread
I would watch you run back
To get the Goat Butter
 
I would like to be sitting in a corner
And you
Intent upon your meal
Not noticing me
When you go to the wine store
I would watch you wrestle with red or white
White, of course, because it’s fish, but red
Is Seductive and who ever fell in love
Over a glass of white wine?  
 
I—uncharacteristically on time—
Would like you to greet me
In a butcher’s apron
I would like to watch you greet me only
In an apron
You would ask me to undress
To undress for you
Before I sit down at the beautiful table
Before you hand me my glass
You would ask me to undress
I would like to watch you watch me
Undressing for you
I would like to watch the movement inside the
     apron
As I undress for you
I would like to watch you walk
No
Stroll to your closet
Where you bring out your old buffalo plaid
     dressing gown
Your pilly much-washed dressing gown that
     smells like you
After you brush your teeth
After you shower After you comb your hair
I would like to embrace your odor
Your odor Your essence as we sit down to eat
I would like for you to cook for me
I would like that
Very much

[And for those interested in Alexander’s new book, How Sweer the Sound, which brought him to The Late Show earlier this week, here’s a review from Kirkus Reviews, 12 October 2024:

HOW SWEET THE SOUND

by Kwame Alexander; illustrated by Charly Palmer

A work whose lyrical and artistic genius only becomes more apparent upon rereads.

A journey through American music history as shaped by Black artists and traditions.

Fittingly, given the U.S.’s long and complicated racial history, this work takes its title from the beloved hymn “Amazing Grace,” written by a slave trader turned abolitionist [John Newton (English; 1725-1807)]. The book begins on the African plains: “Listen to the fireside chorus / of the motherland / to the talking drums / dancing beneath the gold sun / that beat a bold tapestry / of yesterday’s stories / and tomorrow’s dreams.” Likewise, the author has created a beautiful tapestry, woven with song titles and musical references. With each introduction to a different genre, he implores readers to “listen.” Laced with powerful imagery, alliteration, and onomatopoeia (“BUM-DUN! BUM-DUN!”), his verse begs to be sung. Taking a comprehensive approach, Alexander explores regional styles such as go-go alongside internationally known genres, including gospel, jazz, and hip-hop. Palmer’s distinctive illustrations offer the perfect accompaniment. Bold colors set the mood, while his brush strokes evoke movement and convey strong emotion as he depicts everything from enslaved people joyfully dancing in New Orleans’ Congo Square to fists raised high for Black power to performances by Chuck Berry [1926-2017], Prince [1958-2016], Lauryn Hill [b. 1975], and other musicians. Detailed backmatter defines terms and explains the significance of the music referenced.

A work whose lyrical and artistic genius only becomes more apparent upon rereads. (Informational picture book. 5-10)

[How Sweet the Sound is available through Amazon ($17.09), Barnes & Noble ($18.99), Strand Book Store ($18.99), and Books of Wonder ($18.99).]

Theater for Young Audiences

by Kirk Woodward 

[Mega-contributor Kirk Woodward’s next topic, following his look at the craft of writing plays, is, as he points out below, what used to be called “children’s theater.”  Both Kirk and I have been involved in theater for young audiences since the 1960s; it’s something that we both think is an important artistic endeavor.

[I’ve published two previous articles on this blog about TYA: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: Children’s Theater in America” (posted on Rick On Theater on 25 November 2009), which was initiated by my attendance at a performance of one of Kirk’s own young person’s plays, and “Missoula Children’s Theatre” (25 August 2009), which I wrote when I was impressed by a report on MCT on television,

[That last post was followed many years later by another, entirely serendipitous guest article.  My friend Oona Haaranen sent me “Nobody Wants to See a Tired Bat on Stage” (9 January 2014), about her young son’s first theater experience with MCT in their Long Island hometown.  Oona’s a dancer, choreographer, dance notator, and dance teacher and I’d been trying to get her to write something about her field for ROT, but she kept putting me off.  Then she sent me this wonderful piece about her son and the visit of MCT.

[Kirk writes that theater for young audiences is sometimes still dismissed as “kiddie theater.”  Back in the late 1980s, I did a one-year leave-replacement stint at the State University of New York College at Oneonta where I found that it had a children’s theater course.  It was the only one I’d ever heard of, so I sat in on one class and it seemed quite good.  I don’t know if SUCO still offers it, but Kirk reports, “Looking at Google, there seem to be at least a few schools that offer something from a class to a program now.”

[I’ve told Kirk this, so it shouldn’t surprise him to see it again:  I think he’s a good and, what’s more, interesting playwright.  I especially enjoy his mystery plays—probably because he’s such a devotee of the genre.  (Kirk has a three-part post on ROT on Perry Mason, 19 and 22 February and 19 March 2018, and he took great delight that an office where he worked for several years was in walking distance of the Manhattan building that occupies the site of the fictional home of gourmet detective Nero Wolfe.)  

[But, I’ve said to Kirk and others, I think his plays for young viewers are truly special.  I tried to convey this feeling in “Sleepy Hollow,” referenced above, and every time I read or see one of his young people’s plays, I’m more and more convinced of this.  (I’m further convinced when I see or read many of the other authors’ children’s scripts.  There’s just no comparison.)]

“Theater for young audiences” (TYA) is the accepted term today for what used to be called, when I was first involved in it, “children’s theater.” Why the name change? In part, I’d guess, the reason is that “children’s theater” might sound like it meant “theater by children,” and although there’s plenty of that, in the theater companies I’m writing about here, adult actors perform for children.

There are a number of good books and articles about TYA (e.g.: TYA: Essays on the Theatre for Young Audiences by Moses Goldberg [Anchorage Press Plays, 2006]; TYA Today magazine [http://www.tyausa.org/publications/tya-today-magazine/, a membership organization] has regular articles on the subject), and from them one can get a good idea of the history of the field, since although its antecedents go far back in time, basically it took shape and prospered beginning in the Twentieth Century.

I don’t intend to retell the story of TYA here, but only to describe my own experiences with it, to talk about some issues involved in writing for it, and to try to convey my enthusiasm for the form, with some reasons why I feel that way.

I was introduced to TYA – then “children’s theater” – some 59 years ago by my friend Perry Baer, who was working at what was then called Louisville (Kentucky) Children’s Theater (LCT). It was founded in 1946, just after World War II.

When I joined the LTC, the theater was still, as it had been since its founding, a completely amateur operation except for a paid director. A much respected leader, Rick Schiller, had moved on to Texas at the end of the previous season; the current director was a man named Claude Astin (1939-2003).

Perry brought me to a Saturday morning “tech day,” which on that particular Saturday was devoted to straightening up the clutter in the basement below the stage of the old University of Louisville (U of L) theater, an historic wooden structure that still exists, although it’s now been moved to a different location on campus. Later Saturdays were devoted to building sets, assembling costumes, and the like.

LCT was a somewhat uneasy guest of the University theater, because they both used the same space. There was some movement between the two, especially on the part of the unofficial leader of the LTC group, David Semonin (1941-2010), about whom I have written elsewhere on this blog (see “Saints of the Theater,” posted on Rick On Theater on 30 December 2011). David was enrolled at U of L, as were some of the others of our group. I was dazzled by the talent in the group, and I wasn’t wrong; several continued with fine careers in theater.

Males are often in short supply in community theaters, so I was cast in a show called Seven At One Blow and then in another called Robinson Crusoe (I am not sure who wrote either of them, but they were published scripts). The other production I remember best from those days was an original musical called Reckon With the River, with a score by Nelson Keyes (1928-1987) and a book by Clark McMeekin, a pen name for two ladies named Dorothy Clark (1899-1983) and Isabel McMeekin (1895-1973).

I go into this detail because plays written for TYA often fall into these three categories: plays based on folk tales; plays based on stories or books; and original works. Any of these can be either musicals or “straight plays.”

TYA has changed enormously since those early days, and LTC is a good example: it is now called StageOne Family Theatre, and it is a well-known and respected professional operation with its own theater space at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts in Louisville.  For some years it was led by Moses Goldberg (b. 1940), an outstanding figure in TYA both as an author and as a director.

There is now an umbrella organization, TYA/USA, with over a thousand members including “theaters, organizations, and individual artists.”  (TYA/USA, or Theatre for Young Audiences/USA, is the U.S. affiliate of the International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People, known by its French initials, ASSITEJ.  TYA/USA—which sometimes goes by the initials USA/ASSITEJ—is a membership organization and publishes TYA Today for its members; the biennial publication is available in some libraries.  The organization’s website is at http://www.tyausa.org/.)

For me the experience of working at LCT was formative. I’ve loved TYA ever since (although I only recently learned not to call it “children’s theater”). After college, in Rockbridge County, Virginia, I directed my first venture with a “children’s show,” an adaptation of Twelfth Night for children (see “Directing Twelfth Night for Children,” 16 and 19 December 2010).

I’ve had many wonderful experiences with TYA. Here are a few: I wrote and directed several TYA productions for the Attic Ensemble in Jersey City, New Jersey. The first came about when I was asked to direct a play based on the Aladdin story, and I realized not only that it was a terrible script, but that it had almost no roles for women. I wrote a new version, which has since been produced a number of times.

Mona Hennessy and I created a professional company for which we both wrote and performed. I remember David Semonin asking me why I thought the world needed another TYA company. I said I thought we could write some worthwhile things, and we did, including a Christmas play (Waiting for Christmas) that was produced as recently as this past holiday season.

Elsewhere I directed TYA shows wherever I could, usually writing the shows as well. I acted and played piano for a year for Pushcart Players, an outstanding New Jersey company, and led the TYA wing of 12 Miles West, a professional company in Montclair (later moved to Bloomfield), New Jersey. More recently I’ve directed TYA for the Theater League of Clifton (New Jersey).

As a matter of fact, a commentary on one of the TYA plays I wrote, a musical version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, has appeared on this blog, as has a fascinating piece about the Missoula Children’s Theatre, and links to both articles can be found in the comments at the beginning of this article.

As I pointed out, TYA is a much more vigorous field than it was when I began working in it. Nevertheless it is still something of a last resort for many actors – often seen mainly as a way of getting their Equity cards – and for theaters, who may have a sort of “second unit” TYA for apprentices, prospective company members, and students in the theater’s training wing.

Many times I have had to scratch for actors to cast in children’s plays. Lenny Bart, the artistic director of 12 Miles West, would try to nudge performers toward our productions by telling them their prospects of joining the main acting company would be much higher if they used TYA to demonstrate what they could do. No soap.

Part of the problem – assuming that the same thing has been and is a problem for others – is the notion of TYA as “kiddie theater,” a notion encouraged by an impressive number of badly written plays, often badly produced. One cringes at the memory of all the TYA plays in which two actors, walking backward toward the center of the stage, bump into each other and scream in mock alarm. One wouldn’t see that in a play by Ibsen!

And that’s the point: TYA demands the same respect for audiences that a play by Ibsen does, and that any other kind of theater does. A sloppy script, poorly directed on a minimal set and filled with acting shtick, deserves exactly the amount of approval that the same things would receive in a play by Shakespeare.

There are differences, of course. In the first place, a young audience isn’t monolithic. (Neither is an adult audience, but ordinarily the distinctions are less clearly defined.) An audience of, say, kindergarteners through third graders is not the same as an audience of, say, up to seventh graders, or tenth graders. As a result, many TYA theaters specify in their advertising the age range for which a particular play is written.

“Writing down” to an early elementary school audience is certainly not a good option. Instead, the playwright must focus on vivid action and clarity of ideas – a good thing no matter what the age of the audience.

Another issue in writing for TYA is that in many cases up to half the audience is likely to be adult – that is, parents and caregivers who, however unwillingly, have accompanied the children to the play. One of the pioneers of TYA in the United States, Charlotte Chorpenning (1873-1955), in her seminal book Twenty-One Years With Children’s Theatre (Children’s Theatre Press, 1954) noticed this situation and advised playwrights to be sure to consider the adults now and then.

Obviously the attention spans of children differ from those of adults. (Some might say they are longer!) I use a school assembly program as a standard for the length of a play for a young audience. Many plays for adults, of course, are also too long and could use the discipline one gets from writing for children.

As a friend of mine says, then, good advice for someone writing a play for a young audience is: “Cook with a wine you like.” You wouldn’t drink a wine you didn’t like; why would you write a play that you wouldn’t want to see?

A crucial issue in writing plays for TYA is the question whether or not such a play should deliberately teach a lesson, a moral, a principle, or a belief. In many cases the answer is “yes.” There is a great deal of excellent writing on the subject, much of it available through the Educational Theatre Association (“shaping lives through theatre education”), supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Theater is a valuable tool for education. I have written instructional plays for both school and church, and have also taught and used what is sometimes known as “creative dramatics” (see “Creative Dramatics,” 30 September 2013), described by The American Association of Theatre for Youth as “an improvisational, non-exhibitional, process-centered form of drama in which participants are guided by a leader to imagine, enact and reflect upon human experience,” often with an emphasis on learning something specific.

Few would disagree with the idea that education for children is important, and that theater can be an effective tool for teaching when guided by people skilled in the field. There are definitely things we want children to learn. Of course, whenever theater is used as a tool for teaching, something specific is being taught. For example, I would want children to learn about the prevalence and the danger of racism.

However, theater as a tool can be used for varied purposes; it could, for example, be used to promote racism. This is not inconceivable. (Some in fact would claim that any use of theater to educate and train is necessarily oppressive and inevitably is going to be culturally biased. I find this position overstated but important to consider.)

Starting out to teach a lesson is not necessarily the best approach for a playwright anyway, and not necessarily better for an audience either. As an audience member, do you enjoy a play more when you see its point coming at you a mile away? And as a playwright, do you feel at your most creative when writing as though you were following a recipe?

I realize that, as George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) says, every play that’s not the merest tissue of effects must have some kind of idea behind it. But often that idea emerges, both for the audience and for the writer, from the interaction of the characters in the play. (Shaw himself, although a fervent Socialist, makes almost no mention of Socialism in his many plays.)

My conclusion is that there is a place for TYA plays deliberately designed to educate, but that there has got to be an important place as well for TYA plays written out of an unforced artistic impulse. Children can gain as much from such plays as adults can from similar plays written for them. The many works of the outstanding TYA playwright Aurand Harris (1915-1996) substantiate this claim.

Earlier I said that the major categories of TYA plays are plays based on folk tales; plays based on stories or books; and original works. Most but not all of the fifteen produced plays for TYA that I’ve written belong to the first two categories, usually to the second, plays based on folktales or books, including, among others, The Bremen Town Musicians, Alice in Wonderland, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Aesop’s fables.

I love the discipline of adapting books and stories for young audiences – the requirements of time, and the demand for a clear storyline and characters. The storyline doesn’t have to be linear either – Alice in Wonderland certainly is not. Working with an established author on material in the public domain is like working with a brilliant collaborator who trusts you.

Mentioning the public domain reminds me that the expansion of TYA goes hand in hand with the expansion of literature for children. The two face many of the same issues, and many stories written for children can make terrific theater – only, of course, if the author grants rights to the playwright, or writes  the plays herself or himself.

One final thought: in an era in which electronic entertainment is rampant, young children still enjoy seeing a play, and that enthusiasm may continue into later life, if it’s encouraged by exciting and interesting theater experiences. If only for the sake of providing an alternative to mass produced experience, TYA is an important and valuable asset for our society.

[Aside from performing in school plays in elementary and middle school (and seeing at least one memorable children’s play, recounted below, in the mid-1950s), my involvement with theater for young audiences didn’t start as early as Kirk’s.  My first real experience with theater for children was in the spring of my senior year at college (1969). 

[I’d been active in the university theater program from my freshman year (which is when I met Kirk, incidentally), but during that final spring, the wife of the university theater director and another faculty wife put together a performance for children that was to tour elementary schools and local libraries in Rockbridge County, Virginia.  

[The production was a version of The Emperor’s New Clothes, though I don’t recall the writer of the published script.  I played the villain.  As much fun as it is to play a bad guy—Iago was my dream role and I played Don John in Much Ado About Nothing—playing a children’s villain is even more fun!

[After I graduated from college, I had several months to wait before reporting for active military duty. The university theater director offered me a gap job in the theater shop, so I was back in Lexington, Virginia, for the fall. When the two women who’d produced ENC proposed a children’s acting workshop, I took a third-grade class.  This was my first experience teaching any kind of theater or acting.

[In the army, after I arrived in West Berlin in the summer of 1971, I became involved in the Berlin Brigade theater activities at the Berlin Entertainment Center.  Then a small group of us formed a theater group independent of the BEC.  One of our members was an air force tech sergeant and he got the Tempelhof NCO club to sponsor us.  (Tempelhof was West Berlin’s main airport at that time, and a U.S. Air Force base.)

[We called ourselves the Tempelhof American Theatre, or TAT, and our first show (21-22 December 1972) was a children’s play, The Wonderful Tang by Beaumont Bruestle (1905-89).  It was a fairy tale set in China and I played a character, The Chorus, who’s like a children’s version of Our Town’s Stage Manager. 

[The show was a huge success.  TAT was invited to do a cut-down version of the play on a Saturday morning children’s show on Air Force Television that was taped in Berlin.  The AFTV show also included some interviews—children’s style—about who TAT was and what we did and what the play was about and so on.

[After the army, I came to New York and went to Rutgers University for a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting from what became the Mason Gross School of the Arts.  During my second year at New Jersey’s state university (1976-77), I signed on as touring stage manager for The Brave Little Tailor, a children’s musical by Aurand Harris that traveled around Middlesex County throughout the school year.

[During the summer following my second and final year at Rutgers, some of the MFA students put together a traveling children’s theater, which we called the Loose Caboose.  We had a rep of two shows which schools, summer programs, libraries, and community centers could book.  One was The Dancing Donkey, a children’s musical by Erik Vos (b. 1929).

[The other show was a story-theater piece all about animals we assembled from a number of sources.  It included an African folk story about Ananse, the trickster spider; a couple of Thurber fables; and the Bremen Town Musicians.  (I don’t remember for sure anymore, but I think I was the hound dog.) 

[This wasn’t Kirk’s script of The Bremen Town Musicians, which is a musical, since I’m pretty sure he hadn’t created his yet.  I believe, however, BMT is my favorite of Kirk’s young-audiences plays—but that may be solely because it contains a song called “You Can’t Stay Mad at a Dog.”  You see, both Kirk and I are dog-lovers.  If you’re a dog-lover, it’s just plain true: you can’t stay mad at a dog!

[I directed a December 1978 production of Kirk’s Aladdin for the American Theatre Arts Project, which was working out of the Provincetown Playhouse near Washington Square in Greenwich Village.  That’s  the historic theater where Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) had gotten his New York start (there was still a permanent cyclorama on the stage which he’d helped build and which bore his initials!). 

[I talked to some of the ATAP leaders about starting a children’s theater program and they were receptive.  I chose Aladdin for our first full-length children’s play.  As Kirk mentions in his article, men are scarce in TYA, and I ran into this issue when I was casting Aladdin.  I had to break one of my own rules and take a part in a play I was directing because I couldn’t get enough male ATAP actors to audition.

[I also cast the Genie as a woman because I didn’t have enough men.  I think that was fine, but I had to drop the Groucho Marx imitation Kirk had written into the part because I didn’t feel it worked with a woman doing it—it didn’t make sense.  (Groucho, 1890-1977, had just died the year before, but I was still pretty certain that the little kids in our audience wouldn’t see the joke anyway—even if the adults with them might.)

[Kirk talks about “exciting and interesting theater experiences” in childhood spurring interest in theater later and I’m reminded of an anecdote I’ve told before (in “A Broadway Baby,” 22 September 2010).  When I was very young, under 10, I’d say, when my family spent part of the summer on Cape Cod, we used to go at least once a season to the Cape Cod Melody Tent in Hyannis.  One show I remember, with one scene in particular, was The Wizard of Oz.  It was more than 65 years ago, but I still have an image of that scene, which I described thus:

I still remember being astonished at a production of  The Wizard of Oz there when, after a tornado generated by the techies, the lights came back up—and there was Dorothy’s house on stage, on top of the Wicked Witch, her legs sticking out from under one side!   It was impossible!  How did that house get there?  It was magic!

[Obviously it made an impression on me that lasted over six-and-a-half decades.  I’ve always seen it as my earliest experience of live theater that stamped me for life.  I think I may have been on stage at a younger age at school.  One time was the dramatization of a folktale or traditional story—I don’t remember which one; maybe the Pied Piper—and I had a speech down front . . . and I went up! 

[I absolutely froze, so much that when people off stage tried to prompt me, I couldn’t pick up what they were saying and I just stood there.  I remember it as minutes, but I imagine it was actually only seconds—and you’d think that would have cured me of being stage-struck.  Nope!  (But that never happened again—at least not that way.)]

Yevgenii Shvarts: Three Script Evaluations

[This is the second part of my post on Soviet playwright Yevgenii Shvarts.  If you haven’t read part one, covering Shvarts’s biography and a little literary criticism, I strongly recommend you go back and do so before reading these script reports.  It will make more sense to you if you have the background provided in the earlier installment.

[These are the three script evaluations I wrote for StageArts (which is now defunct) on Shvarts plays.  I can’t remember for certain by whom I was introduced to these plays; I think it must have been my production dramaturgy professor at NYU, but I’m not sure.  (If so, she probably suggested I read The Shadow and when I found it so engaging, I went on to read the other two.)

[I only noted the sources of the texts of two of the plays—they were all in different anthologies, which is why they each use a different spelling for the author’s name—but I’m sure the books are all out of print now; they may already have been when I read them.  There’s a later edition of all three of these plays in one volume which seems to be available in both used and new copies and may still be in print: Yevgheny Shvarts, The Naked King, The Shadow and The Dragon (London/New York: Boyars, Marion Publishers, 1976).

[I see that only one of the reports is dated—but they were all written at pretty much the same time in 1984, which is when I started working at StageArts.  (I hadn’t devised a reporting form yet, so these were all written up ad hoc.)  The evaluations below are arranged in the order in which I read the plays.  (I have done a little up-dating of some historical details, but I haven’t changed my 1984 assessments.)]

THE SHADOW

Тень (Tyen’, 1940)

by Evgeny Lvovich Shvarts

Plot Synopsis:  a young Scholar, studying in a country where fairy tales come true, hears the story of a mysterious Princess who will return to the throne and rule the country when she marries.  As it turns out, the Princess is hiding out in the apartment across the street, and the Scholar sees and falls in love with her when she appears on her balcony.  The Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, not wanting to lose their positions when a new king and queen mount the throne, intrigue to prevent the marriage. 

The Scholar loses his shadow, which reappears as a rival for the Princess’s hand.  The Shadow conspires with the two ministers, and, having befriended the Scholar, deceives both the young man and the ministers, becomes engaged to the Princess, and assumes control of the country.  The Scholar, who is too innocent and honest to understand the duplicity that has been used to trick him, tries to discover why the Princess left him. 

Annunziata, the daughter of the Scholar’s landlord, has been his friend and has silently loved him since the beginning.  She tells him that his rival is his former Shadow, and tries to convince him not to pursue the Princess.  He does anyway, and the Shadow has him sentenced to death.  He is taken off and beheaded, and the Shadow’s head falls at the moment the Scholar’s is lost off-stage. 

With the help of some magic water, the Scholar is restored to life, and the Shadow, too, regains his head.  The Scholar rejects the Princess, accepts the love of Annunziata who saved his life, and leaves the country.  The Shadow disappears, and the country is left much as it was before.

Theme:  A study in duplicity and fickleness, The Shadow is a satirical comedy on social manners.  Except for the Scholar and Annunziata, all the characters are either out for personal gain or inconstant in their feelings.  Insensitivity and deception are common, and loyalty is nonexistent.

History: The Shadow was written between 1937 and 1940 specifically for the Leningrad Comedy Theater on the suggestion of director-set designer Nikolai Akimov, after The Naked King was banned from being shown in the same theater. 

The première took place on 12 April 1940 and the first edition of the text was released by the publishing house of the Comedy Theater.  The book was illustrated with Akimov’s renderings of costumes for the performance.

Subsequent productions were mounted in 1960 at the Leningrad Comedy Theater, directed and designed by Akimov; 1984 at the Leningrad Academic Theater of Comedy, directed by Yuri Aksyonov and designed by Marina Azizyan; 2003 at the Saint Petersburg Academic Comedy Theater, directed by Tatyana Kazakova and designed by Emil Kapelyush.

There have been many additional productions of The Shadow, including the most recent: in 2018 at the Winter Theater of Orekhovo-Zuevo (near Moscow), directed by Alexander N. Kalinin.  Film versions were produced in 1971 (as The Shadow) by Nadezhda Kosheverova and 1991 (as Shadow, or Maybe It’ll Work Out, a musical film) by Mikhail Kozakov.

Evaluation:  No retelling of the story, however detailed (and mine above is very simplified), could faithfully capture the flavor and style of the script.  Shvarts called the play “A Fairy tale in Three Acts,” and, indeed, it is based on a Hans Christian Andersen tale of a man who lost his shadow.  The Shadow may be his most vivid, most flamboyant, most imaginative, and most profoundly shocking work. 

The fairy-tale trappings and stylized treatment do not mask but point up Shvarts’s condemnation of the petty bureaucratic, self-serving behavior that is common no less today than it was in 1940, and in the U.S. no less than in the USSR.  The charm and off-center treatment in the play make this an irresistible adventure, and an unavoidable statement that is never the wrong time to make.  It is also great fun, and will appeal to adults and, perhaps with a few small edits, children on different levels.

The acting style of the play is far from realistic, and care would have to be taken not to overstep the bounds of the script’s innate character.  Too much buffoonery will destroy the play as fast as too much solemnity.  The play has its own charm, and does not need to be pushed.

Other Considerations:  The large cast requirement (3 Acts; 5 women, 14 men, extras) may present a problem, however, I believe there are extras that can be cut, and some possible doubling and combining of characters.  This may require some scriptual adjustments, but the effort may well prove worth it.

The play describes a number of locations around the city, but since the style is non-realistic, these need only be suggested symbolically.  Imagination is far more necessary than accuracy, and several locations can easily be suggested by the same set.

The most difficult problem in the production would be the magic.  The Scholar actually loses his shadow, a fact which is pointed out in the dialogue.  The Shadow is described as losing his head, quite literally, and regaining it just as miraculously in full view of the audience.  In the end of the play, the Shadow disappears as guards grab for him, leaving only his cape behind.  At this point, I have no idea how these tricks could be accomplished, but I am sure they can be managed with imagination, and some technical assistance from a special-effects technician.

Notes:  The style and genre of this play is different from the usual material considered by StageArts.  I provide this evaluation on the behest of Nell Robinson [one of StageArts artistic directors], who took an interest in the play when I described it to her orally.  It may, in fact, be too cumbersome to produce on a limited time and financial basis.  It is, however, an unusual play, and will not have been produced recently in New York, or the U.S. in general.  A good production of such a play might, indeed, garner some critical attention.

Source: Franklin D. Reeve, ed., An Anthology of Russian Plays: 1890-1960, Volume 2, An Anthology of Russian Plays (New York: Vintage Books, 1963).

*  *  *  *

THE NAKED KING

Голый король (Golyi korol’, 1934)

by Evgeny Shvarts

2 July 1984

Plot Synopsis:  Basically this is the story of “The Princess and the Pea” combined with “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”  Heinrich, a young swineherd, falls in love with the Princess who returns his feelings.  The King Her Father sends her off to marry the neighboring King, a pompous fool.  Henry and his friend Christian follow to save her from this fate.  Along the way, the ministers of the King she is to marry endeavor to prove her royal lineage and purity (the “Princess/Pea” plot). 

When the King falls in love with her on sight, Henry and Christian pretend to be weavers with a magic cloth to show him to be a fool before the Princess’s father (the “Emperor’s Clothes” plot).  Of course, the King goes to his wedding stark naked and the people realize that all their leaders are fools and liars and revolt.  The Princess’s father flees in fear, and Heinrich turns the revolt into a salute to “love, friendship, laughter, and joy!”

Theme:  As with Shvarts’s other adult fairy tales, he presents his two main themes: the power of love and the unmasking of fools and tyrants in leadership.

History: Written in 1934, The Naked King was not published in the Soviet Union until 1960 (during the Khrushchev Thaw following the death of Joseph Stalin) because of its “dangerous allusions.”  The play’s première production in the Soviet Union was also in 1960, at Moscow’s Contemporary (Современник - Sovremennik) Theater.  Even then, it was considered an act of political tightrope-walking, but the play was popular and remained the troupe’s repertoire for decades.

In 1991, The Naked King was staged at The Russian State Theater “Satyricon” in Moscow.

Genre/Style:  Adult fairy tale; allegory

Structure:   2 acts, many scenes; panoramic

Setting:  Various locations in 2 fairy-tale kingdoms.  Realism will not work or be suitable; suggested and fanciful settings, easily shifted, would be necessary to accomplish the fast-paced scene changes.

Language:  Fanciful, stylized dialogue; much poetry and singing; non-realistic.

Characters:  Large cast with much doubling/tripling necessary.  Name characters are 1 woman (Princess), late teens-early 20’s; 6 men: 2 40-50, 2 30-40, 2 20’s.  Extras: Court ladies, Gendarmes, Soldiers, Courtiers, Ministers, Populace, etc.  (4-5 each men and women should be sufficient.)

Evaluation:  I don’t like this play as well as The Shadow, but it is amusing and pleasant.  Its large cast has many quirky characters (e.g.: the General, Officer & Sergeant who only talk in military commands) which should be fun to act.  The story is so well-known, however, that the larger issues Shvarts is raising may be lost.

The two fairy tales Shvarts amalgamated into The Naked King do not really blend seamlessly.  In fact, until the heroes establish themselves as weavers, the early part of the play seems like prologue.  It may play better than it reads, however.

Recommendation:  Second reading

Source: Franklin D. Reeve, ed., Contemporary Russian Drama (New York: Pegasus, 1968)

*  *  *  *

THE DRAGON

Дракон (Drakon, 1944)

by Yevgenii Shvarts

Plot Synopsis:  This fairy tale for adults is too complex to relate in simple form.  It is the story of Lancelot, who comes to a town ruled by a Dragon who exacts tribute in the form of a young girl every year.  The townspeople have been caring for and supporting the Dragon for 400 years, not wanting to take the action necessary to free themselves. 

The only supporters the knight finds are Charlemagne, the Keeper of Public Records, whose daughter is the next sacrifice, and his Cat.  Everyone else is afraid to meddle with the status quo.  Finally, just before the battle, Lancelot is given some magical gifts by some last-minute supporters: a flying carpet, an invisibility hat, a sword and lance, and a self-playing musical instrument.  In a fierce battle above the town square, Lancelot defeats the Dragon, chopping off his three heads one by one.  Mortally wounded, he disappears, leaving the town in the hands of the Mayor and his son, Henry.

The Mayor, declaring himself the true Killer of the Dragon, makes himself President, and Henry becomes the Mayor.  The President is forcing Elsa, Charlemagne’s daughter, to marry him.  Just as the wedding ceremony is taking place, Lancelot returns, frees the town once again, and sends the Mayor and Henry off to prison.

cast:  3 acts; 6 women, 18 men; much doubling

Theme:  Shvarts has two common themes in these adult fairy tales (The Shadow and The Naked King are of this genre): love conquers all, and good triumphs over evil.  He was a staunch anti-Fascist, and he showed tyrants to be cowards and weaklings in his works.  In The Dragon, he showed that the people prefer the “protection” of a tyrant over governing themselves.  In the end, Lancelot says that it isn’t enough to kill the Dragon, but that all the little dragons inside man also have to be killed before the town is safe from tyranny.

History: The Dragon was written in between 1942 and 1944 while Shvarts was an evacuee from besieged Leningrad in Stalinabad (formerly and currently Dushanbe), Tajikistan.  Attempts to stage the play at the Leningrad Comedy Theater, directed and designed by Nikolai Akimov, during the rules of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev ended with a ban; the first public performance took place in August 1944 in Moscow, but it was canceled after a few performances. 

The first full début of The Dragon in the Soviet Union was not until 1962, mounted by Akimov at the Leningrad Comedy Theater; the production was banned after a month.  In Moscow, the play was also staged in 1962—at the Moscow State University Student Theater, directed by Mark Zakharov; this production was banned after 17 performances.

In the early 1960s, the first foreign productions of The Dragon were mounted in Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany).  Subsequently, productions were staged in France, in Saint-Étienne, Grenoble, and Bourges.

The Deutsches Theater in East Berlin, the capital of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, known colloquially as East Germany) holds a special place among foreign productions of The Dragon.  Directed by Benno Besson, designed by Horst Sagert, with music composed by Rainer Bredemeier, The Dragon played for the first time there in March 1965 and remained in the repertoire until the end of the 1981 season, accumulating 580 performances.  The performance was successfully presented in many countries of Eastern and Western Europe, was unanimously praised by viewers and critics, and became an event not only in German, but in world theater.

At the Pinocchio Theater in Magnitogorsk, Victor Shraiman staged the play in 1979 using dolls and masks to depict some incarnations of the Dragon, the cat Masha, and the townspeople (putting mannequins among the audience) while the main roles were played by actors.  In 1980, puppeteer Sergei Obraztsov presented a full puppet version of The Dragon in Obraztsov Puppet Theatre.

In 1969, the (East) Berlin State Opera (the state opera of the GDR) premiered the opera Lancelot, composed by Paul Dessau for a libretto (based on The Dragon) by East German playwright Heiner Müller. 

In 1988, director Mark Zakharov made the film To Kill the Dragon based on the play.  The St. Petersburg Studio of Radio of Russia broadcast a radio play version of The Dragon In 1994.

Since the turn of the 21st century, there have been no less than six production of the Shvarts’s play, the most recent being a 2017 staging at the Moscow Art Theater Chekhov (formed in 1987 after the division of the famous MAT into two companies).

Evaluation:  Like The Shadow, this play requires a considerable amount of magic in the staging.  It has fantastic characters (talking cats, donkeys and dragons) and good deal of other special effects.  The style of Shvarts’s plays is far from realistic, and a flair for the broad humor and fantasy of children’s theater is necessary.  (This is not to say that the play is a children’s play; it is decidedly a serious piece for adults.)  Color and spectacle are certainly important aspects of the production of The Dragon, and a careful balancing of the message with the fairy-tale elements will not be easy.

The characters are all creatively imaginative, though the best lines belong to the villains of the piece.  With the right kind of actors, these would be wonderful and challenging roles for performing.  The language, because of the fairy-tale aspect and the translation, can be slightly stilted, but this can be overcome with a combination of style work in rehearsal, and some retranslation.

Shvarts’s works are not often produced in this country, and are not well known.  I believe that a good production of one of his plays will be a significant theatrical event in New York.  I recommend serious consideration of this play, and Shvarts’s other works, even though they may not be easy to produce.  The large cast requirement can be dealt with by doubling many of the characters, and the magic and fantasy can be accomplished with good, creative staging.  The innate charm and uniqueness of Shvarts’s plays will certainly attract critical attention and audience appreciation.

[A quick word about the titles of these plays: because the Russian language lacks articles (a, an, the)  the titles of The Shadow and The Dragon are sometimes rendered in English as simply Dragon and Shadow.  (I’ve never seen The Naked King written without the ‘the,’ but I suppose it could be.  Theoretically, The Shadow and The Dragon could also be translated as A Shadow and A Dragon—just as Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull is sometimes published as A Seagull—but I’ve never seen that, either.)

[The 1988 movie adaptation of The Dragon is listed with three English variations of the title that I’ve encountered: Kill the Dragon, To Kill the Dragon, and To Kill a Dragon.]